A section of the Bourbaki Panorama in Lucerne, painted in 1881 by Edouard Castres.

(SRK)

At the beginning of February 1871, more than 85,000 soldiers from the Bourbaki Army fled to Switzerland. They were looked after by the Swiss Red Cross.

(redcross.ch)

A Swiss village in Messina after the earthquake of 1908.

(SRK)

The Swiss Red Cross taking care of an injured soldier during the First World War.

(SRK)

In November 1918, nurses from the Clinique de La Source in Lausanne were awarded a military medal for their service during the Spanish Flu outbreak.

(SRK)

The first Swiss medical mission leaves for the Eastern Front in 1941.

(RDB)

Looking after an injured child during the Second World War.

(SRK)

A daycare centre in Annemasse, France, during the Second World War.

(SRK)

Refugee children arrive in Switzerland.

(RDB)

Children from Hamburg arrive at Baden train station in Basel for a holiday in 1946.

(SRK)

The Swiss Red Cross hands out beds to families in need.

(SRK)

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: volunteers in Bern sort through clothes for emergency relief.

(RDB)

A Swiss Red Cross nurse takes a soldier's blood in around 1970.

(SRK)

Refugees talk to a Red Cross worker at a collection centre in Buchs, St Gallen, in January 2016.

(Keystone)

Annemarie Huber-Hotz (left), president of the Swiss Red Cross, and actress Esther Gemsch sort through presents donated as part of the "2x Christmas" scheme on January 5, 2015.

(Keystone)

This content was published on April 5, 2016 5:00 PMApr 5, 2016 - 17:00

The instantly recognisable symbol of the Swiss Red Cross, which turned 150 this month, brings to mind the organisation's role as a deliverer of aid to those in need. But not many know that it was also condemned for its actions during the Second World War.

A jubilee bash took place on the square outside the capital’s parliament building and was primarily intended for the organisation’s 4,000 employees and more than 70,000 volunteers. At the same time there was a roadshow, “150 years of the Swiss Red Cross”, outside parliament. The mobile exhibition will tour Switzerland throughout the year.

Founded in 1866, the Swiss Red Cross saw its reputation as a knight in shining armour enhanced when Switzerland accepted and interned 85,000 cold and starving soldiers from France’s Bourbaki army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. This massive undertaking is immortalised in the 112-metre-long and ten-metre-high Bourbaki Panorama in Lucerne.

Swiss medical missions looked after injured soldiers from Hitler’s Wehrmacht on the German-Russian border, but some of its actions during the Second World War were less glorious. Historians have accused the Swiss Red Cross of not delivering enough assistance to persecuted Jews and even of handing them over to the Nazis.